Condor sailings to France reduced as rules tighten
INCREASED quarantine rules in Europe for British arrivals has seen Condor reduce its French sailings.
The French government announced this week that anyone arriving from the UK must quarantine for seven days in a bid to prevent the spread of the Indian variant.
Travel to and from France is still strongly discouraged and curfews are still enforced, but entering the country is allowed.
Other European countries have also been tightening their border rules, with Germany requiring British arrivals to quarantine for two weeks.
Against this backdrop, Condor has cancelled some of its French sailings over the bank holiday weekend. This has had a knock-on effect for some inter-island sailings.
‘We are sorry [some] Condor Rapide services are cancelled due to low passenger numbers and the ongoing Covid situation in France and other parts of Europe,’ a spokesman said.
Passengers have been given the option to transfer to the Clipper, which is still operating some French sailings.
Sailings on 4-7 June have also been affected.
From early July, travel between the islands will be maintained by a combination of high-speed sailings and Commodore Clipper.
A Condor spokesman said their summer timetable would reflect the current pandemic restrictions.
‘The reimposition of seven-day quarantine from France for arrivals from Britain and the islands only yesterday further illustrates the difficulty for Condor in forward planning during the pandemic,’ he said yesterday.
‘We are committed to providing travel options for islanders and supporting tourism so the revised timetable offers an overall increase in capacity across the network compared with two years ago.’
There have been some complaints about changes in the inter-island schedule in the coming weeks.
The spokesman said Guernsey and Jersey would each be served by a high-speed vessel, with evening departures to Poole from Guernsey along with new sailings to Portsmouth.
‘Sailings in general focus around weekends when people want to travel and are designed to be flexible, so should demand change we can review the services we provide.’
The comments come ahead of the introduction of the Condor Voyager – a Brittany Ferries craft, which will operate to and from the islands over the summer, alongside the Liberation.
